


Don't Know Anything

by withoutmerit



Category: The Outsiders - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hopefully a Tearjerker, Postponed Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 03:25:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14583909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withoutmerit/pseuds/withoutmerit
Summary: Dally didn't die that night under the streetlight.





	Don't Know Anything

The kid didn't know anything.

If he could sit there and write his stupid theme, with a little babyish tone to it, and have the... the audacity (one of Ponyboy's words from the stupid story) to be proud of it, he is an ignorant little shit. No, the kid doesn't know anything.

He changed it. He made me seem like I was fine, right up until I wasn't, and then he killed me off, just for the sake of emphasizing my character. He never showed how I lived for months longer than that. How I died so stupidly (and yet so happily).

I was running through the thick night air, a shook-up Pepsi bottle full of something that made me want to scream and cry and laugh, all at the same time. I didn't, because I was Dallas Winston, and Dallas Winston had no emotions except for anger. I wanted to, though. By logic, I could probably get away with it, too, since part of what I was feeling was anger. Johnny was dead, which meant that every possibility of a good emotion was taken over by the reality of all of the bad ones.

I didn't see anybody as I ran down the sidewalks, which was nice. I couldn't have them looking at me. What they would see would surprise them into gossiping all over town: a towheaded boy, the toughest hood in Tulsa, with an unhinged look across his face. I couldn't see myself, of course, but I knew what I looked like. I could feel my eyelids so wide, they touched my cheekbones. When I thought about it, they were strange, too. Wet.

It was when I tripped that the idea finally hit me. I could feel the sharp corners of the gun holstered to my belt pressing into my waist. If I didn't want to feel anything, I didn't have to, right? After all, Johnnycake had the right to go after those kids even though he had to have known that some people (Me) cared about him more than anyone could ever care about those kids. I was supposed to be his hero, right? Right? You can't hurt your own hero. That would make you the villain. So if he could get himself killed for caring, and I didn't have to feel anything, I could die.

But I didn't have any bullets. I had to check, because by then, I didn't have any kind of sense. But I didn't. What I think now is, had I died how I wanted, having an unloaded gun was better than a loaded one. Had it been loaded, I would have shot myself then and there.

No, my idea was better.

I could get the cops after me, you see? And then they would kill me. It was a fate everyone always thought was mine, and I would get what I wanted. Everyone involved, namely me and the cops and my pitiful excuse for a gang, would be content (content, but not happy. the world could not be happy without a Johnnycake in it. i refuse to accept that).

 

Usually, I always got what I wanted, but that night was just not my night.  
Surviving was bland as hell. Not boring, something always occupied my time. During the first month of it, that something was pissing off my hospital nurses. The rest was spent fucking around with Shepard, with me lagging behind. Bullets to the leg and shoulder would do that to you, ya know.

Still. Even food was tasteless. Shepard's outfit wasn't anything like my gang, the New York one or the Tulsa one. Everything was a process to them, albeit an angry process. I got the idea of what it was like to be in the military, hanging around them.  
Food started burning my mouth after I read the kid's story, like even burgers were angry and bitter. He didn't put in any of the important things, the things that made the whole story matter. Like, he never said until the end that the other kid (Johnny) and I were completely dependent on each other. And he didn't like me? I was ugly? Well, that was just the icing on top of the chocolate cake he talked about so much.

I started seeing the broad, Cherry-something, more often. The one good thing that did come out of the incident was that afterwards, tensions were softened between Socs and Greasers. I couldn't care less, since there wasn't a Soc alive I cared about seeing. The appeal of the fiery redhead had even died away, with Sylvia smothering me all the time, thinking that if we fought like we used to, I would break. Cherry was acting weird around me, too. Like, she would always seek me out, but then act like she wanted nothing more than to get away from me when I opened my mouth. If the kid's theme was telling the truth, it was because she was halfway in love with me.

I liked the idea of somebody I had no obligations toward loving me. I liked it a lot.

++++++++++++++++++

 

Then I got sick. Stupid winter, lovely pneumonia. My fault for sleeping outside so often. I didn't go to the doctor, I just lazed around at my dad's house, then at Buck's when my coughing started bothering him too bad.

I can recall the exact moment that I knew I was gonna die. It was when expanding my chest to breathe got too difficult, when even keeping my eyes open was an ordeal. I didn't mind the idea so much. If the rest of my life was going to be this blandness that it had been since he died, I would gladly trade it to see Johnnycake again.

++++++++++++  
The end was still painful. I know, because my chest hurt and I could feel the hundred-page weight of that stupid, false story in my hand.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N This is my second fanfiction EVER, besides the first really stupid one, and I came up with it between 11:15 and 12:30 at night. No revisions were done except for spelling, and that was because I have very limited computer access. There is no real narrative in this. It is simply a drabble about Dally dying of natural causes. Criticism welcomed!


End file.
